Kate Forsyth's Blog, page 56
May 24, 2013
INTERVIEW: Sulari Gentill, author of The Blood of Wolves
This Sunday I am appearing at a panel on 'Fantastical Tales' at the Sydney Writers Festival with fellow fantastical authors K. B. Hoyle and Sulari Gentill.
To celebrate, I interviewed Karin (K.B.) yesterday, and today I'm pleased to introduce Sulari Gentill, who under the name S.D. Gentill, has published a YA fantasy adventure series called The Hero Trilogy.
The event is on Sunday at 10am, in the Philharmonia Studio. Details here
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Award-winning author Sulari Gentill writes the Rowland Sinclair Series, historical crime fiction mysteries set in the 1930’s. The fourth book in the series Paving the New Road has just been released. The second book in the series A Decline in Prophets was recently announced winner of the Davitt Award for best crime fiction 2012. Under the name S.D. Gentill, Sulari also writes a fantasy adventure series called The Hero Trilogy. The third and final book in the series, The Blood of Wolves, has just been released.
What is your latest novel all about?
The Blood of Wolves if the final installment of the Hero Trilogy. The series as whole is Mythic Fiction - a retelling of ancient epics. I have on occasion been accused of writing Homeric Fanfic. To be honest, that's probably not unjustified... though this third book is based on Virgil's Aeneid. In it, the Herdsmen of Ida, allies of now the now defeated Troy, join Aeneas and his fugitive fleet of Trojan survivors in their search for a new homeland.
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How did you get the first idea for it?
That's a bit embarrassing really. I was meeting with Pantera Press, to sign a contract for A Few Right Thinking Men - the first book in my Historical Fiction series. Pantera had come across Chasing Odysseus (or at least a review of it) on the internet - it had been placed in a manuscript award a few months earlier. I hadn't actually sent the manuscript to them so I was caught by surprise when they expressed an interest in signing it too. Of course I was ecstatic. They'd assumed that it was the first book of a series and asked me what I'd planned to do with the sequels. I hadn't actually thought about Chasing Odysseus in a while let alone contemplated sequels, but being a new author and desperate to please, I didn't want to tell them that. So I made up plots for the next two books on the spot...I really just said the first things that came into my head. And then I had to write it!
What do you love most about writing?
The people in my head. It's certainly never lonely in there!
What are the best 5 books you've read recently?
A Beautiful Place to Die - Malla Nunn
The Will Power series - Robert Gott
The Half Child - Angela Savage
The Trusted - John M. Green
The Raven's Heart - Jesse Blackadder
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What lies ahead of you in the next year?
I'm due to start writing the next Rowland Sinclair Novel (#6) in about October. Gentlemen Formerly Dressed (Rowland Sinclair #5) will be released in time for Christmas and I've just finished Escaping Judgement, the first manuscript of a new series which will come out in 2014. But between now and October, I am in the glorious position of being able to experiment... to try another genre, something completely new...or I might write nothing at all and just paint instead....or I could do both...
May 23, 2013
INTERVIEW: K.B. Hoyle, author of The Enchanted
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Karin Hoyle (published under her initials K.B.) is coming to Sydney next week to appear with me and Sulari Gentill at the panel session ‘Fantastical Tales’, in which we’ll be talking about writing fantasy for young adults and why the genre is so phenomenally successful (lucky for the three of us!)
The event is on Sunday at 10am, in the Philharmonia Studio. Details here.
K.B. Hoyle is the American author of The Gateway Chronicles series published by TWCS which have gained a strong following with young adults and grown-ups. She combines timeless themes and deep concepts with how teenagers today think, talk and react. While writing the first four books in the series: The Six, The Oracle, The White Thread and The Enchanted she taught history to High School students and brought up her three sons. She finished her first novel aged 11.
I’m looking forward to meeting Karin – it sounds like we have a lot min common. In the meantime, she has answered a few questions for me about her books, her life, and her inspirations:
What is your latest novel all about?
I am in the middle of writing my YA fantasy series called The Gateway Chronicles. Book four, The Enchanted, was published in October of 2012, and currently I'm looking ahead to the publication of book five, The Scroll, this coming fall.
The series is about a group of teenagers who find themselves in an alternate, magical world after stumbling through a gateway at a summer camp. They have prophesied roles to fulfill to help save this world, including, for main character Darcy Pennington, a marriage to the prince of the realm.
In The Enchanted, the story focusses in on Darcy and the prince she is supposed to marry, Tellius, as they navigate falling in love in the midst of life-threatening trials, Tellius's ascendancy to the throne as king, and a journey to face a dangerous enemy. The Scroll picks up one year later when Darcy heads back to Alitheia, the magical land, to discover that Tellius has been captured by their enemy, and the only way to get him back is to solve an unsolvable riddle.
[image error]
How did you get the first idea for it?
The idea for the series came from my experiences at summer camp growing up. Summer camp was a very special time for me, and I had great friends at this camp that I only saw once a year. The time spent with them in the woods and on the water, away from the rest of the world, was so magical that I wanted to memorialize it by writing a series of books about it. So the story is grounded in reality, at its core, and from there I just began to ask the "what if?" questions. What if there was a magic gateway at this camp? What if six friends found a parallel world on the other side of that gateway? What if they had a prophesied job to do and went back every year? Then I mixed in all the elements I like in a good story - realistic dialogue, a lot of action, a little romance, symbolism, riddles and oracles, etc. - and made it all into a coming-of-age fantasy adventure romp.
What do you love most about writing?
I feel alive when I write, and I think this is probably because I love the act of sub-creation (a concept J. R. R. Tolkien describes in his brilliant essay On Fairy Stories). To be able to take the known, that which is all around us, and craft it into something rather unknown - something new yet old, creative yet traditional, something that entertains while informing - just thrills me to my core. Writing is like painting a picture with words. If the story comes alive for me as I write, I know I'm onto something, and I feel a sense of euphoria. It makes me want to throw up my arms and, like Tom Hanks in Castaway, shout, "I have made fire! I have made fire!"
But I always feel a sense of humility with this sub-creative thrill as well, for I believe in God, and I believe my writing desires, drive, and abilities come from him with a responsibility attached - to create something true, something beautiful, and something good. When I feel I have done all of these things, it is then that I feel the most alive. And it is unlike the joy and satisfaction I get as a wife, a mother, and a teacher; it is something truly unique to writing.
What are the best 5 books you've read recently?
I am rather picky when it comes to the books I read, and it is rare that I label a book as being truly excellent, but there have been a few over the course of this year that have struck me in unique ways.
1) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I had never read it before this year, and I was so shocked by the narrative misdirection that I literally shouted aloud when I read the reveal scene. I thought it was pure brilliance.
2) The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. I've read it many times before, but this year I taught it as a seminar class, and I was struck anew by the majesty and the poetry of the story, which is to me like beautiful classical music. This book far outstrips all others in my reckoning.
3) Fire by Kristin Cashore. I try to keep up with what is selling well in the YA genre, since that is of course my genre as well, and I picked up Cashore's books after I saw some of my students passing them around. Fire was my favorite, and while I don't hold all the same views as Cashore in certain aspects, I found her storytelling and pacing brilliant. Her stories unwrap one later at a time, and as such are both predictable and unpredictable in all the right ways.
4) Matched by Ally Condie. I'm getting really into Dystopian these days, and this is probably my favorite Dystopian YA novel I've read since The Hunger Games. I found Matched to be sharp and insightful and a realistic picture of where the world could be going.
5) How Harry Cast His Spell by John Granger. Like The Lord of the Rings, this is a book I've read several times before, but I always come back to it when I'm writing. Granger's analysis of why Harry Potter appeals on so many levels is excellent to study when one is writing one's own fantasy series, and it is a must-read staple on my bookshelf!
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What lies ahead of you in the next year?
This coming year promises to be almost as crazy as last year was, when I edited and marketed three books, wrote two more, and had a baby while working full time. My publisher, TWCS, will be releasing The Scroll in the fall, and by that time I will also be well on my way into writing the sixth and final book in The Gateway Chronicles series, The Bone Whistle. While I'm writing The Bone Whistle, I'll be continuing plans for my next series, a YA Dystopian Romance trilogy I hope to publish through TWCS, and continuing to market the rest of my books. I have readers chomping at the bits to get their hands on The Scroll, so I'm very excited to see that title released. I'm furthermore making plans to promote my books in October at the Austin, Texas book festival with my publishing house, and I will be at another book festival in Atlanta, Georgia in September, so lots of traveling in the near future! I'm also a wife, a mother to three little boys (ages 1, 4, and 6), and a full-time teacher, so those things will continue to keep me busy as always. Next year will be a good year, I can feel it.
Karin Hoyle (published under her initials K.B.) is coming to Sydney next week to appear with me and Sulari Gentill at the panel session ‘Fantastical Tales’, in which we’ll be talking about writing fantasy for young adults and why the genre is so phenomenally successful (lucky for the three of us!)
The event is on Sunday at 10am, in the Philharmonia Studio. Details here.
K.B. Hoyle is the American author of The Gateway Chronicles series published by TWCS which have gained a strong following with young adults and grown-ups. She combines timeless themes and deep concepts with how teenagers today think, talk and react. While writing the first four books in the series: The Six, The Oracle, The White Thread and The Enchanted she taught history to High School students and brought up her three sons. She finished her first novel aged 11.
I’m looking forward to meeting Karin – it sounds like we have a lot min common. In the meantime, she has answered a few questions for me about her books, her life, and her inspirations:
What is your latest novel all about?
I am in the middle of writing my YA fantasy series called The Gateway Chronicles. Book four, The Enchanted, was published in October of 2012, and currently I'm looking ahead to the publication of book five, The Scroll, this coming fall.
The series is about a group of teenagers who find themselves in an alternate, magical world after stumbling through a gateway at a summer camp. They have prophesied roles to fulfill to help save this world, including, for main character Darcy Pennington, a marriage to the prince of the realm.
In The Enchanted, the story focusses in on Darcy and the prince she is supposed to marry, Tellius, as they navigate falling in love in the midst of life-threatening trials, Tellius's ascendancy to the throne as king, and a journey to face a dangerous enemy. The Scroll picks up one year later when Darcy heads back to Alitheia, the magical land, to discover that Tellius has been captured by their enemy, and the only way to get him back is to solve an unsolvable riddle.
[image error]
How did you get the first idea for it?
The idea for the series came from my experiences at summer camp growing up. Summer camp was a very special time for me, and I had great friends at this camp that I only saw once a year. The time spent with them in the woods and on the water, away from the rest of the world, was so magical that I wanted to memorialize it by writing a series of books about it. So the story is grounded in reality, at its core, and from there I just began to ask the "what if?" questions. What if there was a magic gateway at this camp? What if six friends found a parallel world on the other side of that gateway? What if they had a prophesied job to do and went back every year? Then I mixed in all the elements I like in a good story - realistic dialogue, a lot of action, a little romance, symbolism, riddles and oracles, etc. - and made it all into a coming-of-age fantasy adventure romp.
What do you love most about writing?
I feel alive when I write, and I think this is probably because I love the act of sub-creation (a concept J. R. R. Tolkien describes in his brilliant essay On Fairy Stories). To be able to take the known, that which is all around us, and craft it into something rather unknown - something new yet old, creative yet traditional, something that entertains while informing - just thrills me to my core. Writing is like painting a picture with words. If the story comes alive for me as I write, I know I'm onto something, and I feel a sense of euphoria. It makes me want to throw up my arms and, like Tom Hanks in Castaway, shout, "I have made fire! I have made fire!"
But I always feel a sense of humility with this sub-creative thrill as well, for I believe in God, and I believe my writing desires, drive, and abilities come from him with a responsibility attached - to create something true, something beautiful, and something good. When I feel I have done all of these things, it is then that I feel the most alive. And it is unlike the joy and satisfaction I get as a wife, a mother, and a teacher; it is something truly unique to writing.
What are the best 5 books you've read recently?
I am rather picky when it comes to the books I read, and it is rare that I label a book as being truly excellent, but there have been a few over the course of this year that have struck me in unique ways.
1) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I had never read it before this year, and I was so shocked by the narrative misdirection that I literally shouted aloud when I read the reveal scene. I thought it was pure brilliance.
2) The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. I've read it many times before, but this year I taught it as a seminar class, and I was struck anew by the majesty and the poetry of the story, which is to me like beautiful classical music. This book far outstrips all others in my reckoning.
3) Fire by Kristin Cashore. I try to keep up with what is selling well in the YA genre, since that is of course my genre as well, and I picked up Cashore's books after I saw some of my students passing them around. Fire was my favorite, and while I don't hold all the same views as Cashore in certain aspects, I found her storytelling and pacing brilliant. Her stories unwrap one later at a time, and as such are both predictable and unpredictable in all the right ways.
4) Matched by Ally Condie. I'm getting really into Dystopian these days, and this is probably my favorite Dystopian YA novel I've read since The Hunger Games. I found Matched to be sharp and insightful and a realistic picture of where the world could be going.
5) How Harry Cast His Spell by John Granger. Like The Lord of the Rings, this is a book I've read several times before, but I always come back to it when I'm writing. Granger's analysis of why Harry Potter appeals on so many levels is excellent to study when one is writing one's own fantasy series, and it is a must-read staple on my bookshelf!
[image error]
What lies ahead of you in the next year?
This coming year promises to be almost as crazy as last year was, when I edited and marketed three books, wrote two more, and had a baby while working full time. My publisher, TWCS, will be releasing The Scroll in the fall, and by that time I will also be well on my way into writing the sixth and final book in The Gateway Chronicles series, The Bone Whistle. While I'm writing The Bone Whistle, I'll be continuing plans for my next series, a YA Dystopian Romance trilogy I hope to publish through TWCS, and continuing to market the rest of my books. I have readers chomping at the bits to get their hands on The Scroll, so I'm very excited to see that title released. I'm furthermore making plans to promote my books in October at the Austin, Texas book festival with my publishing house, and I will be at another book festival in Atlanta, Georgia in September, so lots of traveling in the near future! I'm also a wife, a mother to three little boys (ages 1, 4, and 6), and a full-time teacher, so those things will continue to keep me busy as always. Next year will be a good year, I can feel it.
May 22, 2013
INTERVIEW: Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites
Hannah Kent, author of Burial Rites is one of the many authors I'm looking forward to hearing speak at the Sydney Writers Festival this year.
Born in Adelaide in 1985, she travelled to Iceland on a Rotary Exchange as a teenager, and there heard the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman to be executed in Iceland. Hannah is the co-founder and deputy editor of Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings, and is completing her PhD at Flinders University. In 2011 she won the inaugural Writing Australia Unpublished Manuscript Award. Burial Rites is her first novel.
Hannah is appearing at the following sessions:
• Historical Fact and Fiction
• People of Letters
• Stella Prize Trivia
• Love Letter to Iceland
Go to the Sydney Writer's Festival site for more information.
What is your latest novel all about?
Burial Rites is based on the true story of the last person to be executed in Iceland. Agnes Magnusdottir was a woman who was sentenced to be beheaded for her part in a gruesome double murder of two men, and the fire that was lit in an attempt to hide the evidence. My book, which is based on a great deal of research, imagines the last six months of her life, as she is held in custody on a farm in north Iceland.
Much of the novel explores Agnes's relationship with the family who is forced to live with her, and the young priest who is assigned to give her spiritual care. As the months go past, Agnes starts to tell her side of the story, and they realise that not everything is as they originally thought.
How did you get the first idea for it?
I first got the idea for Burial Rites when I was an exchange student in Iceland, over 10 years ago. I lived in the north of the country for twelve months, and during that time I frequently passed the site of Agnes's execution. Hearing snippets of the murder story filled me with curiosity, and when my desire to know more increased rather than abated when I returned to Australia, I decided to research the events and write a novel. I wrote Burial Rites to address what I saw as some pretty wild assumptions about this elusive convicted murderess; to try and find answers for my questions.
What do you love most about writing?
A hard question! I love so much about it. I love the research that goes into a book. I love the slow deliberation over what words to use and what order to put them in, so as to convey or suggest a very particular idea or feeling. I love the way it lets me inhabit other worlds and other lives. I love the fact that I can do it in my pyjamas. I love the feeling of connection it gives me - that through writing I can explore something bigger, more universal than myself.
What are the best 5 books you've read recently?
Another hard question. In the last two months I've read and loved Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels, How to be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman, Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Played With Fire (not a huge crime buff, but I loved this second novel in his Millenium series), Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project, and Karl Ove Knausgaard's A Death in the Family.
What lies ahead of you in the next year?
I'm very fortunate in that I have quite a bit of travel coming up. I'm looking forward to travelling to the UK in August for the release of Burial Rites there, and later to the US for the Sept 10 release in North America. Other than that, I'm hoping to have some time to knuckle down to my next book.
Hannah Kent's website
INTERVIEW: Ashley Hay, author of The Railwaymans Wife
I'm very happy to welcome Ashley Hay to the blog today.
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A guest at the Sydney Writers Festival thsi week, Ashley is also the author of four books of non-fiction, The Secret: The Strange Marriage of Annabella Milbanke and Lord Byron, Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and their Champions, and Herbarium and Museum with the visual artist Robyn Stacey.
Ashley's first novel, The Body in the Clouds was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 'Best First Book' (South-East Asia and Pacific region) and the NSW Premier's Literary Awards. Her new novel is The Railwayman’s Wife.
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Ashley is appearing at the following session at the Sydney Writers Festival:
• Ashley Hay: When ‘Where’ Becomes ‘Who’
• A Character Called Place
• On Craft: The Oral Tradition
• Ashley Hay’s Pep Session: Dodging the Dumps, the Blocks, Black Holes and Dead Ends
• Stella Prize Trivia
• The Art and Pleasure of Reading
What is your latest novel all about?
My husband says "The Railwayman's Wife" is about love and loss, people and place - and I like that description.
How did you get the first idea for it?
I borrowed an accident and a recompense from my father's life and asked if he'd mind if I imagined a novel from them. My father's father was killed in a railway accident; my father's mother became a railway librarian after that. I heard my father talking about the job she'd had in the small library in which she'd worked - quite a few years ago now - and as he spoke, a train surged along the tracks just outside the window. It had never occurred to me before that this job that she'd taken on when she became a widow had made her work so closely to the sound of the thing that had killed her husband. I think that was when I started imagining the story.
What do you love most about writing?
I love the moments when you can feel a new series of sentences unfolding, somehow just ahead of your imagination. And I love stories - I don't think I'm much of an oral story-teller, but I love working with the shapes and sounds of words on a page.
What are the best 5 books you've read recently?
Richard Powers' Generosity
Krissy Kneen's Steeplechase
Stephen Edgar's new book of poems, Eldershaw
Amy Espeseth's Sufficient Grace
and I've just re-read Annie Dillard's The Writing Life, which is always wonderful.
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What lies ahead of you in the next year?
I'm working on another draft of a new novel, which I think is about Brisbane, and doppelgangers, and the tendrils that run out from the options we didn't choose.
Ashley Hay's website
May 21, 2013
INTERVIEW: Rachael Treasure - author of The Farmer's Wife
I’m appearing at a panel called ‘The Spirit of Romance’ at the Sydney Writers Festival this Thursday, along with the fabulous Suzy Duffy and Rachael Treasure.
Rachael Treasure lives in southern rural Tasmania with her two young children and an extended family of kelpies, chooks, horses, sheep and dogs. She is passionate about encouraging non-readers to read, as well as inspiring both farmers to consider regenerative agricultural practices and animal handlers to better understand their dogs and livestock.
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Rachael's four novels and collection of stories have all been bestsellers and she is credited with inspiring the genre of 'farm lit'. Her first foray into erotica is Fifty Bales of Hay, Sexy Stories from the Farm.
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For more information about our event, go here
What is your latest novel all about?
The Farmer's Wife is the sequel to my trailblazing novel 'Jillaroo' of
2002 that brought to life my grassroots country girl, Rebecca
Saunders. Penguin had never experienced a character like her and she
was snapped up off the slush pile. The Farmer's Wife visits Bec ten
years on, now a mother in a failing marriage with a farm that is
slowly dying as a business and as an ecosystem. The book brings to
light my own journey as a farmer in adopting regenerative agricultural
methods.
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How did you get the first idea for it?
I began my journey for this book years ago as a rural based
communications student wanting to shatter the stereotyping, cliche
and over simplification of agricultural issues and its people. Food
underpins the health of our species yet Australia's urban based media
and political systems often overlook the importance of all things
rural. Jillaroo and The Farmer's Wife was a device to reach a wide
readership on rural issues - ie FOOD production... relevant to us all.
My idea for the sequel came mostly from meeting Gulgong farmer Colin
Seis, who has developed farming methods that have the potential to
restore the health of our nation. Adopting his practices on my own
farm sparked a desire to bring Bec back to life to show a positive way
forward into the agricultural future.
What do you love most about writing?
I love playing with characters within the very Aussie, very humorous
world of the working class rural people and the upper class grazier
set and using that cast of characters, along with beautiful rural
settings, to showcase deeper rural issues that affect us all.
What are the best 5 books you've read recently?
The Woman who Changed her Brain by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young
The Power is Within You, Louise L Hay
Dream More by Dolly Parton (I want to be her when I grow up!)
Lost Voices by Christopher Koch
Bruce by Peter Ames Carlin
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What lies ahead of you in the next year?
Publication into the United States, England and Germany with The
Farmer's Wife, re-fencing and re-watering my property in Tasmania, a
new horse for me and my kids, more song writing with country rock
band, The Wolfe Brothers, a new novel to write, a kids book on the
boil and re- publication of my working dog training book. And giving
myself permission to sit and have a cuppa from time to time.
Rachael Treasure lives in southern rural Tasmania with her two young children and an extended family of kelpies, chooks, horses, sheep and dogs. She is passionate about encouraging non-readers to read, as well as inspiring both farmers to consider regenerative agricultural practices and animal handlers to better understand their dogs and livestock.
[image error]
Rachael's four novels and collection of stories have all been bestsellers and she is credited with inspiring the genre of 'farm lit'. Her first foray into erotica is Fifty Bales of Hay, Sexy Stories from the Farm.
[image error]
For more information about our event, go here
What is your latest novel all about?
The Farmer's Wife is the sequel to my trailblazing novel 'Jillaroo' of
2002 that brought to life my grassroots country girl, Rebecca
Saunders. Penguin had never experienced a character like her and she
was snapped up off the slush pile. The Farmer's Wife visits Bec ten
years on, now a mother in a failing marriage with a farm that is
slowly dying as a business and as an ecosystem. The book brings to
light my own journey as a farmer in adopting regenerative agricultural
methods.
[image error]
How did you get the first idea for it?
I began my journey for this book years ago as a rural based
communications student wanting to shatter the stereotyping, cliche
and over simplification of agricultural issues and its people. Food
underpins the health of our species yet Australia's urban based media
and political systems often overlook the importance of all things
rural. Jillaroo and The Farmer's Wife was a device to reach a wide
readership on rural issues - ie FOOD production... relevant to us all.
My idea for the sequel came mostly from meeting Gulgong farmer Colin
Seis, who has developed farming methods that have the potential to
restore the health of our nation. Adopting his practices on my own
farm sparked a desire to bring Bec back to life to show a positive way
forward into the agricultural future.
What do you love most about writing?
I love playing with characters within the very Aussie, very humorous
world of the working class rural people and the upper class grazier
set and using that cast of characters, along with beautiful rural
settings, to showcase deeper rural issues that affect us all.
What are the best 5 books you've read recently?
The Woman who Changed her Brain by Barbara Arrowsmith-Young
The Power is Within You, Louise L Hay
Dream More by Dolly Parton (I want to be her when I grow up!)
Lost Voices by Christopher Koch
Bruce by Peter Ames Carlin
[image error]
What lies ahead of you in the next year?
Publication into the United States, England and Germany with The
Farmer's Wife, re-fencing and re-watering my property in Tasmania, a
new horse for me and my kids, more song writing with country rock
band, The Wolfe Brothers, a new novel to write, a kids book on the
boil and re- publication of my working dog training book. And giving
myself permission to sit and have a cuppa from time to time.
May 20, 2013
INTERVIEW: Suzy Duffy, author of Wellesley Wives
I’m appearing at a panel called ‘The Spirit of Romance’ at the Sydney Writers Festival this Thursday, along with the fabulous Suzy Duffy, Rachael Treasure and Amanda Hooton.
Suzy Duffy has travelled to Sydney all the way from the small town of Wellesley in the US. She had built a national radio, television and writing career in her native Ireland before emigrating to Wellesley, which inspired her latest book Wellesley Wives (the first of a four-book New England series).
This funny and romantic book made the Amazon Kindle top 100, within two weeks of being published, and won 10th place in the US Bestsellers List 2012. Romantic comedy is how she sees life.
For more information about our event, go here
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What is your latest novel all about, Suzy?
Wellesley Wives is a romantic comedy about four Boston women who seem to have everything but then it all comes crashing down. They move from Ferraris and fine art to working in a boathouse in Banagher (in the middle of Ireland.) However, that’s where they discover their true worth and inner strength (because I think we gals have incredible chutzpah when we need it!) Naturally Ireland is awash with gorgeous, brooding Celtic types just waiting to be saved by stranded suddenly-singles. It’s a rollicking ride through America, Ireland and Mexico and it’s guaranteed to make you laugh out loud.
How did you get the first idea for it?
It’s true; art imitates life. I live in Wellesley and one lovely sunny day I saw a woman (who looked like Goldie Hawn) driving a spanking new red Ferrari – top down - of course. She looked happy. I hated her. I was in my jam-stained, kid-smeared, dog-moving, SUV. Then, as I drove home with Barney drowning out the noise of my kids fighting, I began to imagine Goldie’s life... maybe it wasn’t as great as it looked on the surface. Maybe there were lots of things about to go wrong. What if everything she knew was about to fall apart? I got home and started writing.
What do you love most about writing?
I love making women laugh. It’s a fantastic thing to do. I love writing funny stories, at home in my quiet little study and then hearing from women all over the world who enjoyed them, laughed out loud and perhaps shared them with their friends, mothers or daughters. What a fantastic job!
What are the best 5 books you’ve read recently?
Waghhh, I hate this question. I feel like I should have five classic, high-brow tomes at my fingertips but I don’t. I’ve read Anna Karenina and War & Peace, but I prefer to laugh. I particularly love Irish writers even though I live in America because, being Irish, I share their humour.
From Ireland, I really loved Melissa Hill - Something from Tiffany’s.
Patricia Scanlon’s new book - With All My Love had me crying as well as laughing .
In the USA, Claire Cook - The Wildwater Walking Club was great too.
Chelsea Handler’s, Hello Vodka had me in tears with laughter!
For Australian humour, I’m reading and loving Amanda Hooton, Finding Mr. Darcy just now. It’s full of laughs!
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What lies ahead of you in the next year?
It’s a bit manic but that’s good. I’ll continue to promote Wellesley Wives in Australia, Austin - Texas and New York this year. It’ll be published in Norwegian in the Autumn, so may be there for that but I’ve been invited to California too, so I think I’ll have to choose one or the other. No one can do everything...
Newton Neighbors will be published in September. It’s the second book in the New England Trilogy and things will ramp up a gear and then I also need to get the first draft of Lincoln Ladies (book 3) into my Publishers by December 2013!
All this and I have five beautiful children and my husband at home. It’s gonna be busy but I love busy.
Did I mention that 10% of my royalties go to Friends of Boston's Homeless so it’s comedy with a cause. You’re doing good when you buy a Suzy Duffy Book! As they say in the USA... it’s all good! (Unless you look like Goldie Hawn – LOL.)
Love Suzy
XXX
Suzy's website
May 18, 2013
INTERVIEW: Tegan Daylight Bennett
It's the Sydney Writers Festival this week!
To celebrate, I'm running a series of short interviews with some of the guests over the course of the week.
To kick off the week, I'm interviewing Tegan Daylight Bennett who is not also an amazing writer but also my doctoral supervisor. Yes, lucky Tegan has to do her best to help me rein in my galloping imagination and actually put together an elegant and restrained piece of academic writing.
I'm hoping I don't make her suffer too much.
Here's the official festival biography:
Tegan Bennett Daylight is a fiction writer, critic and lecturer in writing. She is the author of three novels: Bombora, What Falls Away and Safety, as well as several books for children and teenagers, and the essays Solving Problems in Fiction and How Influence Works. She is at work on a collection of short stories, which have been published in many journals. She works as a lecturer in creative writing in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology.
Tegan is appearing at the following sessions:
• Missing in Action: Australia’s Literary Past
• The Art of the Short Story
• The Uncommon Reader
• In Praise of Short Form
• Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
•
Click here for session times and venues..
What is your latest novel all about?
My newest book, which isn't finished yet, is a collection of short stories about the dark space between being a teenager and being a young woman; about sexuality and belonging, I guess.
How did you get the first idea for it?
The idea came when I was commissioned to write a short story for Charlotte Wood's collection 'Brothers and Sisters', about siblings. I found myself writing a story called 'Trouble' about an Australian girl living in London with her successful older sister and failing to make a go of it with English life and English men.
What do you love most about writing?
I like finishing. I like the feeling of understanding what it is I've been writing about; the feeling of drawing all the ideas together. That's one of the great pleasures of the short story.
What are the best 5 books you’ve read recently?
Georgia Blain's new book of short stories, 'The Secret Lives of Men'.
'The Fun Stuff' by James Wood.
'Cheever' by Blake Bailey.
'Leaving the Atocha Station' by Ben Lerner.
'Dear Life' by Alice Munro.
What lies ahead of you in the next year?
5. I'll be finishing my collection. I've got a few stories out this year, in Griffith Review and The Review of Australian Fiction. I'm expecting and hoping to get a few more out there before the year ends.
May 17, 2013
BOOK LIST: Books Read in April 2013
I read 10 books in April, bringing me to a grand total of 44 books for the year. All but one was a historical novel - next month, I must try and read a little more widely!
The Changeling – Philippa Gregory
This is Philippa Gregory's first foray in Young Adult Fiction and I thought it was really well done. From the opening scene, I felt as if I was in the hands of a storytelling master. The pace is swift, the characters are believable, sympathetic and sharply drawn, and the historical setting done with a sure, light touch. The book twists together a medieval mystery, romance, and a touch of the supernatural to make a most enjoyable read.
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The Firebird – Susanna Kearsley
I was drawn to this book by the utterly gorgeous cover and also by a Good Reads recommendation which said it was like other authors I'd enjoyed like Kate Morton and Kimberley Freeman. It's always a risk and an adventure trying out a new author, and I'm really glad I took the jump. Susanna Kearsley's writing is just gorgeous - very sensuous and vivid - and the storyline is intriguing. The heroine Nicola has the psychic gifts of seeing 'flashes' of an object's past when she lays her hands on it. Although she works in antiques and art, she tries to keep her gift hidden from the world. Until she touches a simple, wood-carved firebird ... and finds herself on a quest to discover its story. The Firebird combines contemporary and historical narratives, romance, suspense, and a a twist of the supernatural into a delicate, wise tale. I believe the book is part of a connected series and so I look forward to discovering her other books.
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The Darling Strumpet – Gillian Bagwell
A wonderful historical novel told from the point of view of Nell Gwyn, the feisty mistress of Charles II.
You can read my full review here and an interview with Gillian Bagwell here.
Silent in the Grave – Deanna Raybourn
Silent in the Sanctuary – Deanna Raybourn
Silent on the Moors – Deanna Raybourn
I read and enjoyed this these Victorian murder mysteries some time ago, but recently realised that there were now five in the whole series and I had only read the first three. So I set myself the task of reading them all again. They were a great pleasure to revisit. Each book is a separate mystery, but a lot of the intrigue comes from the slowly developing romance between the heroine, Lady Jane Grey, and the mysterious investigator she first meets in the first line of the first book:
"To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband's dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor."
The tone of the books are wry and clever - there's a lot of subtle ironic humour - plus I loved the way lady Julia slowly turns from being a repressed Victorian lady to a bold, sensual and self-determined woman. I'm looking forward to reading the last books in the series (I've already bought them!)
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The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris – Jenny Colgan
A book bought solely on the title and the cover! I don't read much chick lit but enjoy a frothy comic romance every now and again. This was even frothier than I expected - and not quite as funny as I had hoped - but a few memorable characters, gorgeous descriptions of making chocolate, and the Parisian setting made it a most relaxing and sweet read.
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And Then She Fell – Stephanie Laurents
I enjoyed this Stephanie Laurents book more than I have some of her other titles --- I think because there was a murder in there as well which meant that was a story line other than the usual rake-meets-lady angle. Good holiday reading.
The Perfume Garden - Kate Lord Brown
A young woman inherits an old house in Spain, discovers clues to buried family secrets, meets a gorgeous Spaniard, and finds her true path in life ... interposed with flashbacks to her grandmother's experiences during the bloody and turbulent Spanish Civil War ... this book is exactly the sort of book I love to read the most. And I did love it! Look out for a longer review and an interview with the author in the months to come.
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The Chalice – Nancy Bilyeau
I read and really enjoyed Nancy Bilyeau's historical thriller The Crown last year and so was eager to return to her world of bloody Tudor intrigue, romance, with a twist of the supernatural. Her heroine Joanna is a sympathetic character and the story is filled with slowly building suspense.
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May 16, 2013
INTERVIEW: Gillian Bagwell, author of '|The Darling Strumpet'
I have great pleasure in welcoming Gillian Bagwell to my blog today. She is the author of two books I've enjoyed hugely: The Darling Strumpet and The September Queen. She has a new book out - called Venus In Winter - which looks wonderful and which I'm looking forward to reading very much.
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Are you a daydreamer too?
Yes, I’m a daydreamer! I think most writers must be. Visiting historical sites is especially evocative for me, especially in connection with my writing historical fiction. I can get lost in imagining my characters there, what they did and thought, and marveling that this is the actual priest hole that Charles II hid in during his flight after the Battle of Worcester, or the very site of the theatre where Nell Gwynn performed, or the street where Bess of Hardwick lived in London. Even if much has changed about a place, there’s something magic about those experiences.
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
I’ve always loved books and I’ve always written bits here and there, but I didn’t begin writing my first novel until seven years ago. Many years earlier, I had done a lot of research about Nell Gwynn, and begun writing a one-woman show for myself based on her life, and though I set that project aside, Nell stayed in my mind and heart, and I always thought I’d get back to her. In 2005, I put my life on hold to go to London to take care of my mother, who was terminally ill, and while there, without a creative focus and needing something of my own to work on, I began writing Nell’s story as a novel, which was eventually published as The Darling Strumpet.
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Tell me a little about yourself – where were you born, where do you live, what do you like to do?
I was born in Tacoma, Washington, in the northwest of the U.S., but moved away from there when I was very young. We moved around during my early childhood, settling in Berkeley, California when I was nine, and that’s where I really grew up. I moved back here two years ago, so it’s home again. The San Francisco Bay Area is a great place, full of exciting things to do and much history.
Inevitably, I suppose, I don’t get around to do as much visiting of historic sites and so on around here as I do when I’m travelling, but they’re there!
How did you get the first flash of inspiration for this book?
My first two novels were set in seventeenth-century, and when I was casting around for what to write next, I recalled that Bess of Hardwick sounded like an interesting character, though I didn’t know much about her, as she lived somewhat earlier than the period I’d been writing about. I did a little research and was immediately drawn to the richness of her life. She rose from humble beginnings to become the wealthiest woman next to Queen Elizabeth, and knew just about everyone of importance in the second half of the sixteenth century. She built Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth House, survived four husbands, and is the ancestor of many of the noble families of England, including the current royal family.
How extensively do you plan your novels?
All three of my books are based on real people, so I start by laying out a timeline of my character’s life and then develop as close to a three-act structure as I can, using significant events as the plot points that turn the story in a different direction, bring a conflict to a culmination, and so on. Of course as I write and continue with my research, I learn more and get different ideas, and the structure may change. But I don’t have to make up an entire story from scratch!
Do you ever use dreams as a source of inspiration?
I can’t think of a specific idea I’ve used that’s come from a dream, but I do try to be open to inspiration and those wonderful moments of serendipity that can come while writing. For instances, I visited Australia while I was working on The September Queen (the title in the U.K. and Commonwealth countries was The King’s Mistress), I saw a great production of King Lear at Bell Shakespeare at the Sydney Opera House. The scenes that take place on the heath, when Lear has been cast out by his daughters are very evocative, and gave me inspiration for the part of the story when Jane Lane and her brother are walking the two hundred miles from Staffordshire to Yarmouth. I wrote a climactic scene that takes place during a storm, with Jane and her brother taking shelter in a novel, as Lear does with his fool and Gloucester.
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Did you make any astonishing serendipitous discoveries while writing this book?
There was a discovery that was tantalizing and frustrating. I learned in the early stages of my research for Venus in Winter, my novel about Bess of Hardwick, that Bess’s letters were being transcribed and digitized to be put online, but that the project wouldn’t be done in time for me to make use of this great resource. Ironically, the project has just gone live (read it here) now that my book is about to be published. But at least people who read my book and want to know more about Bess can read her letters. And I can use the letters if I write the second part of Bess’s life, as Venus only covers her first forty years.
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Where do you write, and when?
I write at home, and I’m fortunate to live in a place that is very conducive to writing: a little cottage in the hills of Berkeley, California, just on the edge of a huge wilderness area, Tilden Park. My desk faces a bank of windows that look out onto redwood and lots of other trees and greenery. It feels remote, though I’m actually very close to other houses and it’s only a ten-minute drive to commercial areas.
I don’t have any particular schedule. If I have more mundane work that takes up my time, I have to fit my writing in around that. Generally afternoons and weekends are good for me—I’m definitely not a morning person.
What is your favourite part of writing?
I can certainly get lost in research. It’s fascinating to me to learn things that make pieces of the puzzle fall into place, shed light on the events of my characters’ lives and their world. For instance, when I was researching The September Queen, I discovered that Elizabeth of Bohemia, an aunt of Charles II who was at the court of her niece and his sister Mary of Orange, planned to take Jane Lane with her when she moved to her son’s court in Heidelberg. It didn’t happen ultimately, but it showed that they had a real relationship, and I made use of that in the book.
What do you do when you get blocked?
If I feel overwhelmed about how to write a scene or how to proceed, sometimes I just pick some smaller task that seems less daunting, such as making small revisions to another scene, and that gets me going. Or I may just tell myself that I just need to sit and work for half an hour, and by the time I’ve done that, I’m into the project again. But not having to make up all the events in a book is a big help! I know what happens next, I just have to figure out how to write it.
How do you keep your well of inspiration full?
Good question! I think I just try to let my mind to stay open to inspiration from whatever source it may come when I’m working on something. Even when I’m not actively writing, I’m thinking about the book, the characters, the events, and I get ideas that I can use.
Do you have any rituals that help you to write?
No, not really. I always think of a quote from the novelist Peter de Vries: “I only write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.” In other words, just do it!
Who are ten of your favourite writers?
Diana Gabaldon – I love her Outlander series and she’s been an inspiration to me.
Patrick O’Brian – I’ve read all twenty of the Aubrey-Maturin books, naval adventures set during the Napoleonic era, two or three times.
George Macdonald Fraser – his Flashman series is very entertaining.
Ian Rankin – sometimes when I’m writing, I really want to read something that isn’t historical fiction, and Rankin’s crime fiction set in contemporary Edinburgh, is perfect for that.
Laura Ingalls Wilder – my sisters and I grew up reading the Little House books, and I’m sure that influenced my interest in history and the lives of people in past times.
Mark Twain – it always amazes me how contemporary and relevant his writing is still. I’m particularly fond of Life on the Mississippi, which chronicles his time learning to captain a steam boat and the characters he encountered during that time.
P.G. Wodehouse – nothing like a little Jeeves and Worcester!
Samuel Pepys – his diary is such a great read, bringing Restoration London so vividly to life.
My home page on my computer is the diary online that Phil Gyford put together over ten years (Samuel Pepys Diary) so I can read each day of the diary as it happens.
Marion Zimmer Bradley – The Mists of Avalon and subsequent books tell the King Arthur story from the perspective of the women in the story, and are very evocative of magic and nature as a source of spiritualism.
Shakespeare – an early love, and in my life in the theatre before I turned to writing, I’ve acted in, directed, and/or produced many of the plays.
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Marion Zimmer Bradley, one of my favourite writers too
What do you consider to be good writing?
It’s hard to say one thing, because there are so many kinds of writing. But certainly some constants are telling a good story that draws your readers in, creating a main character that is believable and with whom your readers can identify, and vividly evoking the character’s world are important.
What is your advice for someone dreaming of being a writer too?
Sit down and write something. Don’t obsess about making it perfect before you move on, get to the end. Then rewrite— that’s much easier than getting it out of your head and onto the paper or screen in the first place.
What are you working on now?
I’m writing the first few chapters of the novel I hope to write next, which is quite different from any of my previous books, and also have in mind another smaller project set in Restoration London.I don’t want to say more than that.
Gillian Bagwell's website
If you enjoyed this interview, you may enjoy some of my other interviews:
Marina Fiorato
Nancy Bilyeau
Joanne Harris
[image error]
Are you a daydreamer too?
Yes, I’m a daydreamer! I think most writers must be. Visiting historical sites is especially evocative for me, especially in connection with my writing historical fiction. I can get lost in imagining my characters there, what they did and thought, and marveling that this is the actual priest hole that Charles II hid in during his flight after the Battle of Worcester, or the very site of the theatre where Nell Gwynn performed, or the street where Bess of Hardwick lived in London. Even if much has changed about a place, there’s something magic about those experiences.
Have you always wanted to be a writer?
I’ve always loved books and I’ve always written bits here and there, but I didn’t begin writing my first novel until seven years ago. Many years earlier, I had done a lot of research about Nell Gwynn, and begun writing a one-woman show for myself based on her life, and though I set that project aside, Nell stayed in my mind and heart, and I always thought I’d get back to her. In 2005, I put my life on hold to go to London to take care of my mother, who was terminally ill, and while there, without a creative focus and needing something of my own to work on, I began writing Nell’s story as a novel, which was eventually published as The Darling Strumpet.
[image error]
Tell me a little about yourself – where were you born, where do you live, what do you like to do?
I was born in Tacoma, Washington, in the northwest of the U.S., but moved away from there when I was very young. We moved around during my early childhood, settling in Berkeley, California when I was nine, and that’s where I really grew up. I moved back here two years ago, so it’s home again. The San Francisco Bay Area is a great place, full of exciting things to do and much history.
Inevitably, I suppose, I don’t get around to do as much visiting of historic sites and so on around here as I do when I’m travelling, but they’re there!
How did you get the first flash of inspiration for this book?
My first two novels were set in seventeenth-century, and when I was casting around for what to write next, I recalled that Bess of Hardwick sounded like an interesting character, though I didn’t know much about her, as she lived somewhat earlier than the period I’d been writing about. I did a little research and was immediately drawn to the richness of her life. She rose from humble beginnings to become the wealthiest woman next to Queen Elizabeth, and knew just about everyone of importance in the second half of the sixteenth century. She built Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth House, survived four husbands, and is the ancestor of many of the noble families of England, including the current royal family.
How extensively do you plan your novels?
All three of my books are based on real people, so I start by laying out a timeline of my character’s life and then develop as close to a three-act structure as I can, using significant events as the plot points that turn the story in a different direction, bring a conflict to a culmination, and so on. Of course as I write and continue with my research, I learn more and get different ideas, and the structure may change. But I don’t have to make up an entire story from scratch!
Do you ever use dreams as a source of inspiration?
I can’t think of a specific idea I’ve used that’s come from a dream, but I do try to be open to inspiration and those wonderful moments of serendipity that can come while writing. For instances, I visited Australia while I was working on The September Queen (the title in the U.K. and Commonwealth countries was The King’s Mistress), I saw a great production of King Lear at Bell Shakespeare at the Sydney Opera House. The scenes that take place on the heath, when Lear has been cast out by his daughters are very evocative, and gave me inspiration for the part of the story when Jane Lane and her brother are walking the two hundred miles from Staffordshire to Yarmouth. I wrote a climactic scene that takes place during a storm, with Jane and her brother taking shelter in a novel, as Lear does with his fool and Gloucester.
[image error]
Did you make any astonishing serendipitous discoveries while writing this book?
There was a discovery that was tantalizing and frustrating. I learned in the early stages of my research for Venus in Winter, my novel about Bess of Hardwick, that Bess’s letters were being transcribed and digitized to be put online, but that the project wouldn’t be done in time for me to make use of this great resource. Ironically, the project has just gone live (read it here) now that my book is about to be published. But at least people who read my book and want to know more about Bess can read her letters. And I can use the letters if I write the second part of Bess’s life, as Venus only covers her first forty years.
[image error]
Where do you write, and when?
I write at home, and I’m fortunate to live in a place that is very conducive to writing: a little cottage in the hills of Berkeley, California, just on the edge of a huge wilderness area, Tilden Park. My desk faces a bank of windows that look out onto redwood and lots of other trees and greenery. It feels remote, though I’m actually very close to other houses and it’s only a ten-minute drive to commercial areas.
I don’t have any particular schedule. If I have more mundane work that takes up my time, I have to fit my writing in around that. Generally afternoons and weekends are good for me—I’m definitely not a morning person.
What is your favourite part of writing?
I can certainly get lost in research. It’s fascinating to me to learn things that make pieces of the puzzle fall into place, shed light on the events of my characters’ lives and their world. For instance, when I was researching The September Queen, I discovered that Elizabeth of Bohemia, an aunt of Charles II who was at the court of her niece and his sister Mary of Orange, planned to take Jane Lane with her when she moved to her son’s court in Heidelberg. It didn’t happen ultimately, but it showed that they had a real relationship, and I made use of that in the book.
What do you do when you get blocked?
If I feel overwhelmed about how to write a scene or how to proceed, sometimes I just pick some smaller task that seems less daunting, such as making small revisions to another scene, and that gets me going. Or I may just tell myself that I just need to sit and work for half an hour, and by the time I’ve done that, I’m into the project again. But not having to make up all the events in a book is a big help! I know what happens next, I just have to figure out how to write it.
How do you keep your well of inspiration full?
Good question! I think I just try to let my mind to stay open to inspiration from whatever source it may come when I’m working on something. Even when I’m not actively writing, I’m thinking about the book, the characters, the events, and I get ideas that I can use.
Do you have any rituals that help you to write?
No, not really. I always think of a quote from the novelist Peter de Vries: “I only write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.” In other words, just do it!
Who are ten of your favourite writers?
Diana Gabaldon – I love her Outlander series and she’s been an inspiration to me.
Patrick O’Brian – I’ve read all twenty of the Aubrey-Maturin books, naval adventures set during the Napoleonic era, two or three times.
George Macdonald Fraser – his Flashman series is very entertaining.
Ian Rankin – sometimes when I’m writing, I really want to read something that isn’t historical fiction, and Rankin’s crime fiction set in contemporary Edinburgh, is perfect for that.
Laura Ingalls Wilder – my sisters and I grew up reading the Little House books, and I’m sure that influenced my interest in history and the lives of people in past times.
Mark Twain – it always amazes me how contemporary and relevant his writing is still. I’m particularly fond of Life on the Mississippi, which chronicles his time learning to captain a steam boat and the characters he encountered during that time.
P.G. Wodehouse – nothing like a little Jeeves and Worcester!
Samuel Pepys – his diary is such a great read, bringing Restoration London so vividly to life.
My home page on my computer is the diary online that Phil Gyford put together over ten years (Samuel Pepys Diary) so I can read each day of the diary as it happens.
Marion Zimmer Bradley – The Mists of Avalon and subsequent books tell the King Arthur story from the perspective of the women in the story, and are very evocative of magic and nature as a source of spiritualism.
Shakespeare – an early love, and in my life in the theatre before I turned to writing, I’ve acted in, directed, and/or produced many of the plays.
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Marion Zimmer Bradley, one of my favourite writers too
What do you consider to be good writing?
It’s hard to say one thing, because there are so many kinds of writing. But certainly some constants are telling a good story that draws your readers in, creating a main character that is believable and with whom your readers can identify, and vividly evoking the character’s world are important.
What is your advice for someone dreaming of being a writer too?
Sit down and write something. Don’t obsess about making it perfect before you move on, get to the end. Then rewrite— that’s much easier than getting it out of your head and onto the paper or screen in the first place.
What are you working on now?
I’m writing the first few chapters of the novel I hope to write next, which is quite different from any of my previous books, and also have in mind another smaller project set in Restoration London.I don’t want to say more than that.
Gillian Bagwell's website
If you enjoyed this interview, you may enjoy some of my other interviews:
Marina Fiorato
Nancy Bilyeau
Joanne Harris
May 14, 2013
BOOK LIST: Best Books set during the times of Charles II
BEST BOOKS SET DURING THE TIME OF CHARLES II
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I’ve always loved stories set in Stuart times, perhaps because my grandmother told me, when I was a little girl, that we were related to the Stuart royal family. When she said ‘we’, she really meant the Clan of Mackenzie, which does indeed have links to the doomed royal family of Scotland, but so long ago and so far away from my own great-great-grandmother Ellen Mackenzie that I could never lay claim to such a connection with a straight face.
Nonetheless, growing up, I read quite a few books set in Scotland and quite a few about the Stuarts. I set ‘The Chain of Charms’, my series of children’s historical adventure stories, in the last days of the rule of Oliver Cromwell and one of my favourite stories to tell at schools and storytelling festivals is the escape of Charles II after the final disastrous defeat to Oliver Cromwell’s army.
This week on the blog I am celebrating Gillian Bagwell’s novel of the life of Nell Gwynn, one of the mistresses of King Charles II, and so I thought I’d draw up a list of my favourite books set during the years of the English Civil War and the Restoration.
Favourite Books I read as a Kid:
Sidney Seeks Her Fortune- Catherine Christian
This is an adventure story about a Cavalier family that lost all its money fighting for the king, and sets outs to restore its fortunes. It includes shipwrecks, highwaymen, pirates, romance and the eventual triumph of its heroine, the steadfast Sidney of the title, and writing about it makes me want to read it all over again …
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The Popinjay Stairs – Geoffrey Trease
I really love all of Geoffrey Trease’s books, but this is one of my favourites. The novel begins with a highwayman waylays a coach that numbers among its passengers Samuel Pepys, who is at that time Secretary to the Office of Lord High Admiral of England. The highway men seem more interested in Pepys’official document case than in gold and watches … and this sets off a wild adventure dealing in treason, blackmail and spies.
Rider of the White Horse – Rosemary Sutcliff
I also adore Rosemary Sutcliff. This is not one of my favourite, but it is still a vivid and engaging historical novel, telling the story of Anne Fairfax, the wife of a Puritan general, Sir Thomas Fairfax. As always, the writing is vivid and supple and evocative.
The House at Green Knowe – Lucy M. Boston
This book has only one scene set during the English Civil War, but it always lingered in my memory.
Favourite Books I Read as a Teenager:
Royal Escape – Georgette Heyer
One of her few straight historical novels, this book tells the story of Charles II’s dramatic six week escape from England after the last, disastrous battle of the English Civil war.
The Wandering Prince – Jean Plaidy
The story of the years Charles II spent in exile as a young man after the loss of his crown, as seen through the eyes of his sister Minette, and his mistress Lucy Walter – Jean Plaidy is not much read these days, but I adored her as a teenager and read every book of hers I can lay my hands on. The Stuart saga was a favourite – it follows on with ‘A Health Unto His Majesty’ which I also really enjoyed.
Frenchman’s Creek – Daphne du Maurier
A wonderfully romantic and adventurous book set in Restoration England, about the affair between a bored English noblewoman and a daring French pirate.
Favourite Books I’ve Read in Recent Years
Year of Wonders – Geraldine Brooks
A brilliant novel about the plague village of Ayam – one of my all-time favourite novels.
Read my interview with Geraldine Brooks
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Lady’s Slipper – Deborah Swift
A fabulous historical novel filled with romance, murder, art, and one rare and gorgeous orchid.
You can read my full review here
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Empress of Icecream – Anthony Capella
A historical novel about the invention of ice cream, and the seduction of Charles II by the French spy, Louise de Keroualle.
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The September Queen – Gillian Bagwell
The story of Lady Jane, the young woman who helped Charles II escape England after failing to win back his crown.
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An Instance of the Fingerpost – Iain Pears
An utterly brilliant historical thriller set after the restoration of Charles II, it has so many unexpected twists and turns I gasped aloud at several points in the narrative. Another all-time favourite novel of mine - a must read for any lover of clever, intriguing historical fiction.
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If you liked this list, you may also enjoy:
Some of my favourite books set in Tudor times
Some of my Favourite Books set in France
Some of my favourite romance novels
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I’ve always loved stories set in Stuart times, perhaps because my grandmother told me, when I was a little girl, that we were related to the Stuart royal family. When she said ‘we’, she really meant the Clan of Mackenzie, which does indeed have links to the doomed royal family of Scotland, but so long ago and so far away from my own great-great-grandmother Ellen Mackenzie that I could never lay claim to such a connection with a straight face.
Nonetheless, growing up, I read quite a few books set in Scotland and quite a few about the Stuarts. I set ‘The Chain of Charms’, my series of children’s historical adventure stories, in the last days of the rule of Oliver Cromwell and one of my favourite stories to tell at schools and storytelling festivals is the escape of Charles II after the final disastrous defeat to Oliver Cromwell’s army.
This week on the blog I am celebrating Gillian Bagwell’s novel of the life of Nell Gwynn, one of the mistresses of King Charles II, and so I thought I’d draw up a list of my favourite books set during the years of the English Civil War and the Restoration.
Favourite Books I read as a Kid:
Sidney Seeks Her Fortune- Catherine Christian
This is an adventure story about a Cavalier family that lost all its money fighting for the king, and sets outs to restore its fortunes. It includes shipwrecks, highwaymen, pirates, romance and the eventual triumph of its heroine, the steadfast Sidney of the title, and writing about it makes me want to read it all over again …
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The Popinjay Stairs – Geoffrey Trease
I really love all of Geoffrey Trease’s books, but this is one of my favourites. The novel begins with a highwayman waylays a coach that numbers among its passengers Samuel Pepys, who is at that time Secretary to the Office of Lord High Admiral of England. The highway men seem more interested in Pepys’official document case than in gold and watches … and this sets off a wild adventure dealing in treason, blackmail and spies.
Rider of the White Horse – Rosemary Sutcliff
I also adore Rosemary Sutcliff. This is not one of my favourite, but it is still a vivid and engaging historical novel, telling the story of Anne Fairfax, the wife of a Puritan general, Sir Thomas Fairfax. As always, the writing is vivid and supple and evocative.
The House at Green Knowe – Lucy M. Boston
This book has only one scene set during the English Civil War, but it always lingered in my memory.
Favourite Books I Read as a Teenager:
Royal Escape – Georgette Heyer
One of her few straight historical novels, this book tells the story of Charles II’s dramatic six week escape from England after the last, disastrous battle of the English Civil war.
The Wandering Prince – Jean Plaidy
The story of the years Charles II spent in exile as a young man after the loss of his crown, as seen through the eyes of his sister Minette, and his mistress Lucy Walter – Jean Plaidy is not much read these days, but I adored her as a teenager and read every book of hers I can lay my hands on. The Stuart saga was a favourite – it follows on with ‘A Health Unto His Majesty’ which I also really enjoyed.
Frenchman’s Creek – Daphne du Maurier
A wonderfully romantic and adventurous book set in Restoration England, about the affair between a bored English noblewoman and a daring French pirate.
Favourite Books I’ve Read in Recent Years
Year of Wonders – Geraldine Brooks
A brilliant novel about the plague village of Ayam – one of my all-time favourite novels.
Read my interview with Geraldine Brooks
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Lady’s Slipper – Deborah Swift
A fabulous historical novel filled with romance, murder, art, and one rare and gorgeous orchid.
You can read my full review here
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Empress of Icecream – Anthony Capella
A historical novel about the invention of ice cream, and the seduction of Charles II by the French spy, Louise de Keroualle.
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The September Queen – Gillian Bagwell
The story of Lady Jane, the young woman who helped Charles II escape England after failing to win back his crown.
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An Instance of the Fingerpost – Iain Pears
An utterly brilliant historical thriller set after the restoration of Charles II, it has so many unexpected twists and turns I gasped aloud at several points in the narrative. Another all-time favourite novel of mine - a must read for any lover of clever, intriguing historical fiction.
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If you liked this list, you may also enjoy:
Some of my favourite books set in Tudor times
Some of my Favourite Books set in France
Some of my favourite romance novels
